Trump White House seeks to assuage farmer unrest over biofuel policy: sources

President Donald Trump’s administration has been scrambling to stem the tide of rising anger in Farm Belt states after its decision this month to allow numerous oil refiners to mix less ethanol into their gasoline, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Trump held a two-hour meeting on Monday with members of his Cabinet after hearing blowback from farmers after the decision to grant exemptions from the nation’s biofuel laws to 31 refineries, two sources familiar with the discussions said. Trump’s re-election campaign team also took notice of Democratic presidential candidates seizing on the unrest, the sources said. Iowa, the nation’s largest producer of corn and ethanol, is a swing state won by Democrat Barack Obama in consecutive elections before Trump rode to victory in 2016 in part by promising to support ethanol.